Chapter 565
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 565
Chapter Title: Are Those Guys Still Alive?
“Argh!”
“Aaaargh!”
Screams from black path ruffians echoed through the small grove.
Three of them were fleeing desperately, ignoring—or rather, blocking out—the screams of their comrades, now former comrades.
They had heard Ha Mu-baek’s warning loud and clear, but with him busy crippling the others back there, they figured he wouldn’t catch up anytime soon.
If anything, it made them run even harder.
They had to get as far away as possible, or that monster would never stop chasing them. That desperate thought fueled their flight.
Their lungs burned, their legs ached with fatigue, but they didn’t stop.
This was the hardest, most earnest they’d ever run in their lives.
They poured out every last ounce of strength, even the kind they’d had as babes suckling at their mothers’ breasts.
After running and running, they spotted the edge of the small grove.
And beyond it, Shangnam in the distance.
They pushed even harder.
So hard that they didn’t even notice their former comrades’ screams fading away.
“I said if you get caught running away, it’s both hands and an ankle, right?”
It was a ghost.
Ha Mu-baek appeared before the three like a specter from hell.
“Kieeeek!”
“Urk.”
“Grk?”
Startled out of their wits, they screamed and tumbled forward in a heap, momentum unbroken.
Ha Mu-baek approached them impassively.
Crunch.
He stepped on one man’s right hand.
“Gaaargh!!”
Crunch.
Then his left.
“Grraaaargh!”
Ha Mu-baek lifted his foot and looked down at the screaming man.
“Right? Or left?”
At Ha Mu-baek’s question...
“P-P-Please... grk... m-m-mercy...”
The man begged for forgiveness instead of answering.
“Tch.”
Ha Mu-baek clicked his tongue, raised his foot...
And stomped the nearer ankle.
“Gaaaaaaaah!!!!”
It was the left one.
While one sacrificed himself in screams, the other two scrambled up and bolted desperately.
But the outcome was the same.
Both hands and one ankle.
Crushed under Ha Mu-baek’s foot.
Ha Mu-baek glanced at the three collapsed forms and walked toward Shangnam as if nothing had happened.
A good while later...
The black path ruffians, each missing one hand thanks to Ha Mu-baek, staggered into town.
“Damn it, ptui!”
“Cowardly bastards!”
They spat curses and phlegm at the three who’d abandoned them and fled.
Those present clutched their right or left hands.
Only one hand crushed, not both.
“Fuckin’ prick. Crippling people over something that small? I’ll get revenge, mark my words...”
The words of one man gripping his left hand drew shocked looks from the others.
“With what? Give it up. How do you fight a martial master like that? Forget it. You have to forget.”
His closest ruffian friend tried to dissuade him.
“Fuck that. I have to live crippled now—this injustice won’t stand. I’ll slaughter every last one of those inn bitches to feel better.”
His eyes darted wildly.
He remembered his sword left at the aphrodisiac den and hurried off that way.
His friend stopped.
No intention of joining that mad scheme.
He shook his head and turned away.
Not toward Shangnam.
Return to Shangnam—one-handed cripple after all their villainy?
It’d be begging the townsfolk to kill him.
So he set course for Henan Province.
Find some small, quiet village to lay low.
“That friend’s as good as dead...”
He muttered with pity.
Cripple someone for tormenting folks, then go back sword in hand?
That was just suicide.
The Plum Blossom Sword Immortal and Wi Su-yeon finished training and returned to the inn, tilting their heads in confusion.
The atmosphere was chaotic.
Something had clearly happened, but it felt awkward to ask.
Starved after training, Kyu Hwi took a table in the dining hall while Wi Su-yeon ordered light snacks before heading upstairs.
As he nibbled at the spread of liquor and dishes before him, Gwan Po returned.
His eyes were glazed; his mind completely gone.
He slumped into an empty seat, ordered simple bites, ate, and shuffled to his room.
After that.
Ha Mu-baek returned.
He ordered fitting liquor and dishes.
He’d come back to the inn looking forward to this, only to waste time on those damnable fools.
Still early for dinner, so simple fare: a plate of small fried pork, paired with suitable liquor.
The Fenjiu brought by Gong Yeop-myeong was lively.
A famous brew from Shanxi Province, home to countless Fenjiu brewmasters—this from a decent house.
Kyu Hwi moved to Ha Mu-baek’s table.
Ha Mu-baek glanced at him.
“What did you do to that Gwan Po fellow?”
Around then, Wi Su-yeon—face veiled in muslin—came downstairs herself with her empty bowls.
Gong Hae-bin rushed over and took the tray.
Spotting Kyu Hwi with Ha Mu-baek, she headed there too.
As she sat, she asked Gong Hae-jun for a simple cup of tea.
“Gwan Po? Just drained his aphrodisiac qi. That’s it.”
Ha Mu-baek answered curtly and lifted his cup.
“For that, his soul might as well have fled his body.”
Wi Su-yeon tilted her head at Kyu Hwi’s words.
She hadn’t seen Gwan Po.
Kyu Hwi muttered it couldn’t be just that.
Aphrodisiac qi was just a type of turbidity, after all.
Was purging turbidity that hard?
Tough work, sure, but not enough to shatter the mind.
“Just purging turbidity and...”
Kyu Hwi tilted his cup, murmuring in disbelief.
His drink was Fenjiu too.
Come to think of it, both men had chosen fried dishes.
“Not just any turbidity. Aphrodisiac.”
“Still turbidity.”
Kyu Hwi was right.
“Why do they call aphrodisiacs drugs for nothing?”
Ha Mu-baek said, popping a piece of small fried pork.
The hot crust yielded to tender pork and juices bursting with flavor.
“Hm?”
“Easy purge, and it’ll come creeping back. Aphrodisiacs, drugs—they linger.”
Ha Mu-baek stated flatly.
“Fair enough.”
Kyu Hwi nodded, chewing his spicy fried beef—gan pang wu yuk.
Fried crisp, yet the beef’s savor lingered after the spice.
It begged for liquor.
He downed a cup and eyed Ha Mu-baek.
“You deliberately made an easy purge into hell?”
Ha Mu-baek nodded.
“Faster that way.”
Wi Su-yeon tilted her head at their talk.
She knew turbidity only cleared through steady internal energy cultivation.
Sure, a transcendent master could comb it out swiftly with beol mo se su, but who could do that?
“Wouldn’t beol mo se su be easier?”
Kyu Hwi voiced her thought, curious.
“Burned it.”
Ha Mu-baek said shortly.
“Burned?”
He nodded again, picking up more pork.
“You mean you incinerated every trace of aphrodisiac qi in his meridians with your internal energy?”
Kyu Hwi pressed urgently, incredulous, setting down his cup.
“Yeah.”
Ha Mu-baek replied nonchalantly, refilling his.
Kyu Hwi stared, disbelieving.
“How’s Gwan Po alive then? Burning out the turbidity that way would torch his meridians too.”
Death, inevitably.
Yet he’d walked in alive, albeit soul-shattered.
Defied all common sense.
“Protected his meridians with my energy.”
Ha Mu-baek emptied his cup casually.
Kyu Hwi gaped at him.
What the hell is this guy saying?
“So you shielded his meridians with yours... while burning out the aphrodisiac turbidity?”
“Not all. About ninety percent.”
“Possible?”
Kyu Hwi couldn’t believe it.
“Worked, didn’t it? You saw Gwan Po.”
Ha Mu-baek shot back, as if asking what the issue was.
“Hah. Hah. Hah. Heh. Heh. Well...”
Kyu Hwi laughed hollowly, repeatedly.
Wi Su-yeon was just as lost.
Her knowledge couldn’t fathom the realm required.
“Theoretically possible, but to do it casually... what level...?”
Kyu Hwi muttered helplessly, lifting his cup.
He needed that drink to clear his clogged mind.
“Hm. My level?”
Ha Mu-baek grinned at the rhetorical mutter.
Kyu Hwi slammed his cup empty, refilled, emptied again.
“Whew. But even if meridians survive, the burning pain—he’d feel it all... Ah...”
Realization dawned mid-thought; he gasped.
“Hence the soul-gone look.”
“Took this long today because...”
“Half a shi.”
Short reply.
“Not treatment. Torture.”
Kyu Hwi shook his head pityingly for Gwan Po.
Wi Su-yeon shuddered, imagining it.
“Has to be that bad, or aphrodisiac cravings return.”
Ha Mu-baek said, chewing pork.
“Nine more times? Yeah, he’ll never crave it again.”
Kyu Hwi agreed, eyeing Ha Mu-baek like a monster.
He grasped how insanely difficult it was.
Easier to just comb out two addicts cleanly.
Oblivious to the talk, Gwan Po sprawled on his inn bed.
Not a finger could he twitch.
Gong Hae-jun watched them intently from a corner.
Guests trickled out; soon, only Ha Mu-baek’s group remained.
Until dinner rush, an hour off, it’d stay quiet.
Steeled, Gong Hae-jun bit his lip and approached Ha Mu-baek.
The three noticed, turning.
“Hm? What?”
Ha Mu-baek asked.
Gong Hae-jun dropped to his knees.
“Great hero! Please take me as your disciple!”
He shouted, prostrating fully.
The child’s sudden act drew stares to Ha Mu-baek from Kyu Hwi and Wi Su-yeon.
Startled Eun Cheong-seon hurried over, but Ha Mu-baek waved her off.
“What’s this all of a sudden?”
“I want to be strong like you, great hero. To protect my family. So nothing like today happens again.”
The boy’s cry brimmed with desperate earnestness.
Kyu Hwi eyed him, then Ha Mu-baek.
“Looks like something went down.”
He recalled the earlier chaos.
“Couple black path thugs causing trouble.”
Ha Mu-baek refilled his cup.
“Oh?”
Kyu Hwi’s eyes gleamed.
Then, via sound transmission:
[Are those guys still alive?]
Pure curiosity.
Ha Mu-baek shot him a sharp look.
“What do you take me for? Tch.”
He downed the fresh cup.
“Kid—no, Gong Hae-jun.”
“Yes, great hero.”
Gong Hae-jun lifted his head at the call.
His eyes blazed with fervent desire to grow strong.